


for I fear your heart, and all that it may do

by eeveepkmnfan



Series: know me by my name [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Character Study, Fluff, Gen, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-08 00:04:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19095691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eeveepkmnfan/pseuds/eeveepkmnfan
Summary: He said, maybe a bit petty, "Fuck you."In which Russia takes care of a sick Iceland.





	for I fear your heart, and all that it may do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vindice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vindice/gifts).



> Dedicated to vindice; I hope you have as good of a time reading this as I did writing it! Iceland is amazing and I'd love to write more of him soon! <3

The world was a hazy, dizzy impression of a slow fall. Ice cracking and waves crashing but it was hot. It was so warm there where he was, and he could feel it on his skin, on his body, on him. Fire and ice and an awful time, really. He resented the cold he’d somehow acquired, but that wasn’t much help at all.

Maybe he stumbled, because the overwhelming kaleidoscope of colors that met his eyes was blinding. And then – 

“Исландия?” A hand, big and warm and wrong, because wasn’t it supposed to be cold? He had a cold, why wasn’t it cold? That voice was so familiar; the pitter patter of rain on a sunny day. 

He didn’t know what to do.

“Исландия, what is wrong?” Nothing much, really, just that he felt as if he were erupting and freezing over all at once – sweat and chills and something much more human, too. Something new and old and something he was already tired of feeling.

He opened his mouth. Tried. “Nothing, I’m fine…” He hoped the words were clear - please, let the words be clear. English could be hard on a good day, and sometimes it felt as if he were still learning the curves and lines that made it up; mouthing and mouthing the words, practicing what he had to say that day, running through scenarios and talking to himself until he was fluent. So many videos and books and… and Mr. Puffin’s encouragement.

He tried to turn, to go away, to be someplace else, but that hand was still there. He could feel it, through the haze that clouded over him, and that soft, suspicious voice said something to him. Something about looking bad… 

He ignored the pain in his head as he turned towards that voice, his body asking him why he was doing this instead of sleeping. He didn’t know either, but this was important. 

He could make out fine, silver snow – and two bright shining stars. He glared harder, focused on his target, and said, maybe a bit petty, “Fuck you.” But if nature’s elements were going to insult him, well, he wasn’t about to take that laying down. Who did they take him for, Denmark? 

“Oh, you are never this mean without being drunk. Have you been drinking tonight, Исландия?” That hand crept from his shoulder up to his forehead and he blinked, having expected something else. Maybe a punch? But that warmth simply migrated to a different part of him, and he was having trouble not falling asleep as he leaned into it, silently urging it to stay.

It did, and he sighed, murmuring his praise in a half-heard, “You’re warm…” Like the morning sunrise – a gentle and slow kind of corruption of the moon’s shadow… except there was no corruption in reality. It was merely the world, turning as it always had and always would. And that would always be comforting.

“You would be the first to say that…” The warmth vanished, and he mourned it like the winter mourned the spring (silently, and with grasping fingers – the clumsy yearning of children). 

But it came back, as it always did. He felt its return to his own hand, and clasped it tightly so that it wouldn’t fly away too soon. Won’t you stay a little while longer?

“What is your room number?” It tugged him along and he generously allowed it, burying his face in his shirt collar and wishing, for the first time in quite a while, for Norway. Because he couldn’t remember and that felt like such a failure, all of a sudden, and he felt like so incompetent, needing something like that – like this. 

Norway always knew what to do, even if he didn’t always agree with him or his ideas. He was more reliable than Denmark, at any rate… even if, along with Finland and Sweden, the both of them tried to get him to call Norway… big brother. But it was embarrassing. It was, wasn’t it? It tugged at him, that feeling, whenever they met eyes. It made him feel small. 

And sometimes he liked it but most of the time he hated it, that feeling – it was bigger, so much bigger than he was and he felt so stupid for being afraid of something so, so -!

He was being pulled by that warmth, and as long as it distracted his meandering thoughts, he was fine with that. If Mr. Puffin were there, he would have called it an adventure and said, ‘Emil, let’s go!’ And he would smile and say yes. 

And if Norway were there, he would be scoffing or frowning or rolling his eyes, but he would be tilting his head as he walked in front of him, looking back and smiling wryly as he declared, ‘You’re not getting any younger, little brother. Follow me.’ He usually did.

“I’m sorry,” he had to say, and he didn’t really know why – just that he wanted to. Silence, the terrible heat and shivers running through his skin, and a voice. A voice he followed through the halls and the twisting turns his thoughts like to take when he was overthinking. When he was younger, he once wondered if thoughts could spill from you like stray hairs, if it was possible to have an overflow of nothing, and if when you had an abundance of overthoughts, would you then have something after all? (In summary, his younger days had been kind of weird.)

“You are forgiven,” it said, sunflowers turned towards the sea. And that was just too depressing, even for him, and so. 

“Thanks,” he said. And it was awkward (as he always was) but true, and so it was funny. He laughed a little, and it felt like laughing at himself all those many years ago, when he’d really known nothing at all, and it felt good. Like the sweet goodbye of a friend, bound to come back again.

“You are very strange, but very sweet, I think.” And he laughed harder at that, because he didn’t know what else to say to that. 

“Would you answer a question for me?” He immediately said ‘okay’ because that sounded agreeable enough for him. And so it was that the amalgamation of a snowstorm and two stars (confusing but so was his existence) posed to him a conundrum. 

“Why do you avoid me?” But really, it was asking, why does everyone avoid me? He wasn’t stupid. And it was obvious (you’re scary) but he closed his mouth before a syllable could escape. Because that wasn’t right. It wasn’t what was in front of him that was so intimidating, it was – 

The weight of history, and what it does to everyone. But that wasn’t really correct either, and it was frustrating, trying to put the right words in front of the wrong problem. 

“I think… they’re scared of what’s in front of you sometimes. It’s like that with America too, right? But… for someone like me, it’s really… more that you’re hard to see, or touch. You’re so warm right now, and maybe you’re always this warm, but I’m not good at that, and really it’s better that I stay by myself. I hate talking and this is all your fault, this situation…” He closed his eyes against the harsh pulse of his brain, hating what he was doing and who he was doing it with.

“I guess… you’re just dumb?” And he couldn’t even muster up the energy to glare when he felt a hand usher him into a room, onto a bed, and then something soothing his hair out of his face. Autumn rain in the middle of summer, and it felt nice but was probably horrible for crops.

“You are very stupid as well, Iceland.” He slowly opened his eyes, only to gaze into a similar violet of his own – but lighter. Those eyes stared down at him blankly, and he sniffed, turning away. He wasn’t in the mood to get lectured; Norway and Finland had that covered, thanks.

“If only you had seeked aid sooner, your leg could have been saved.” With that grave pronouncement, he weakly lifted the blankets from around his lower half and stared at both of his intact legs and back to Russia, letting the silence speak for itself.

Suddenly, violet eyes brightened and the other man smiled, chuckling, “It was only a joke! But it is true, you are stupid. Do not make me do this again.”

Letting the covers fall, he sighed and flopped onto his back, coughing once or twice as he did so. Wincing, he put a hand to his throat but as a glass of water came into view, he saw Russia lifting a brow, as if to scold an unruly child. 

He took the glass and downed it quickly, huddling into the covers and hoping to fall back asleep. No luck.

Still standing there, his caretaker smiled, and it was an eclipse. It was a fragile hope that it would eclipse him and let him fade from all earthly (and unearthly) memory.

“Do not worry, little Исландия! I will be here to help you recover from your foolishness.” Russia’s hand pat the top of his head gently, and he huffed, for all the world the image of a pouting child. Oh, what would Norway say to that?

But it was warm, and so Iceland said, “I’m glad.” And he was.

He could accept Russia’s kindness, for now. He had neither the energy nor the patience to care what he was acting like or what his caretaker’s motives might be – and, as much as he would never say this out loud, it did feel good to be taken care of like this. As long as he was sick, he could accept at least this much. When he was better, then…

“Sleep, Iceland. When you wake, I will be here.” Russia rearranged the blankets into something much more comfortable and gave him one more quick pat on the head before withdrawing, going over to the nearby desk to sit, handling what looked like paperwork. He could only faintly wonder if he was in Russia’s room. In Russia’s bed.

But it didn’t matter, because he was so sleepy, and the room nice and warm like the comfort found in defrosting window panes – or the first wild wind of winter. That comfort inched over him bit by bit until he was swept up in it like the fever his body was battling, and he could only breathe out contentedly. Before he fell completely asleep, he managed to whisper, “Dreymi þig vel.”

“Приятных снов.”

For once, Iceland just _was_. 

Leaning his head on a hand, Russia smiled a small smile to himself and watched through the window the night, and experienced how it made fools of them all. When next little Iceland woke, everything would return to what was, and thus, the magic of late night conversations would turn to dust and be swept away. Nothingness to nothingness, as was the way of things. 

Even if he would remember. He would remember, and try again, for that was all could do. 

He had long learned all the ways the world didn’t need him, but he needed them, and so. He would keep trying to teach them how to need him. Eventually, they would.

When Iceland woke, he would extend a hand. 

He just had to keep trying.


End file.
